Skull Island: Rise of Kong was one of the most criticized titles of 2023, although I don’t think it deserved all the “worst game of the year” labels that were attributed to it. Still, I was pretty sure no one would have the guts to make another King Kong game so soon. I expected people to wait a few years before trying again with a new idea, but here we are, less than a year later. Kong: Survivor Instinct brings a new approach, this time connected to the current cinematic universe that the great ape is a part of – Legendary Pictures’ Monsterverse.
Contrary to expectations for a game based on King Kong, you don’t play as the titular ape in Survivor Instinct. Although he is theoretically not considered a villain in the Monsterverse, he is treated as a villain in this game. The game itself is a hybrid of metroidvania and cinematic platformer, similar to vintage games like Prince of Persia and Oddworld. You play as a shaggy father looking for his daughter in a post-apocalyptic environment, which has been devastated by the actions of Kong, with a motivation reminiscent of The Last of Us.
The opening scene is confusing, to say the least. Shaggy Dad drives his car normally, until he decides to destroy it in a bizarre stunt, saying it’s easier to cover the rest of the game on foot. If by that he meant exploring collapsed buildings, dealing with terrorists and escaping the clutches of an enraged gorilla bent on killing him, then he was absolutely right.
It was hard to get used to the absurd premise of the story, but once the game actually started, I noticed how unusual Kong: Survivor Instinct is. I can’t say it’s great, because the game is full of problems, but it definitely had interesting ideas for metroidvanias and 2D platformers. It is also significantly better than the previous title of the same development team, Castle of Heart. The goal of the game is to collect items to solve small puzzles and get to certain points on the map, where you can call Kong to contextually solve situations. This almost always means that the monkey will remove an obstacle and open a path to a new area.
However, Kong is not your ally. In certain parts of the game you have to run away from him. Although the platforming in the game is deliberately clumsy, these sections were the most exciting part of the game. Kong is huge and terrifying, and you are a powerless middle-aged man with a metal barrel and a gun. Kong can destroy a building with one hit, so your goal is to hide or run as fast as you can so you don’t end up as a blob on the wall. These sections were tense and fun. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the fighting parts of the game.
Combat is frustrating. Your character is slow and his shots are slow to hit enemies. Bullets are scarce, and you don’t want to waste them on enemies as they are needed to destroy the door chains. So you’re forced to rely on slow, clumsy hand-to-hand combat using a metal pipe. The health bar is very low, so if you fail to parry an enemy or forget to duck while someone is shooting at you, you will get seriously hurt. Fortunately, for a game that describes itself as a metroidvania, Kong: Survivor Instinct doesn’t have too many combat sections – exploration is still a key element.
Unfortunately, a game that wants to be epic and intense suffers from an apparently modest budget, resulting in a weaker presentation. The Unreal Engine allows for impressive background visuals, although the playable areas are quite generic. The character animations are stiff, but Kong looks great and really scary. The sounds in the game are decent, and Kong’s roars are epic… however, your protagonist sounds like someone who’s only mildly annoyed at the mall, instead of a desperate father searching for his daughter in the middle of the apocalypse.
Although the game is nothing special in terms of mechanics and is filled with questionable decisions and clumsy parts, I appreciate its unique premise. The team tried to make an interesting combination of cinematic platformer, metroidvania and apocalyptic survival game with a limited budget. She didn’t bore me to death, but she didn’t completely delight me at any point. I enjoyed some aspects (especially the parts with Kong), others frustrated me, but in the end I didn’t regret giving it a chance.
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